Exploring Toon Boom Storyboard Pro Collaboration Tools

Storyboard Pro from Toon Boom is an all-in-one storyboarding solution. It is easy-to-use and the industry standard for storyboarding software. The software makes it easy to visually conceptualize your project during pre-production. One of the most powerful features of the software is the built-in collaboration tools. These tools make it easy for your team to work together on creating the perfect storyboard for your project without stepping on each other’s toes. In this post, we will look at the general workflow for collaboration in Storyboard Pro. We will also look at how Storyboard Pro’s collaboration features work. This will not be a tutorial post because Toon Boom has already provided an incredibly detailed tutorial for using collaboration tools in Storyboard Pro.

Storyboard Pro – Splitting the Project

Collaboration works by splitting your storyboard project into segments and distributing them to your team members. This allows you to break the project into smaller chunks that each individual member can work on. When a project is split, the split content is saved as a separate project file. In general, if you’re working in an organization, you would want a centralized data store where you can upload your split files. With a centralized data store, you and all your team members can access the same data quickly and easily. The good news for students is that a centralized data store could be something as simple as Google Drive or Dropbox. You just need a location that everyone on the team has access to.

Extracting Storyboards

Extraction is much like splitting. While splitting is used to break up the entire project to distribute to team members, extraction is used to split the broken-up project into manageable chunks. Within each project, there are scenes. Scenes may contain multiple frames, sound effects, and more. With extraction, you can extract each scene out of the project and put them into their own project. Depending on your workflow, this may not be necessary. However, this process helps keep all your moving parts separated from one another. This can help make it easier to organize your data and narrow your focus while you work. It also makes it easier for a team leader to distribute specific scenes to members of their team as needed.

Merging Split Projects

Once changes have been made to one member’s scene or project, their files can be merged back into the main project. Merging, essentially, takes the updated files and places them back into the main project file for viewing and further editing. However, you can choose what elements of the split project you want to merge into the main project. For instance, you can tell the merger not to import specific features, such as comments, dialog, and action notes. Once the split project is merged back into the main project, you will see all the changes and additions your team member made to their split project.